ASRock Unveils Passively-Cooled Radeon RX 7900 GPUs To Game In Peace And Quiet
Building a PC isn't all that difficult, and it gets exponentially easier once you've gone through your first rodeo. What's a little more challenging, however, is constructing a silent or ultra-low noise gaming PC, which requires a bit more research and more thoughtful effort towards cooling. To help you get there, ASRock has unveiled a line of passive-cooled Radeon RX 7900 series graphics cards.
ASRock is giving both AMD's flagship Radeon RX 7900 XTX and its next-fastest GPU, the Radeon RX 7900 XT, the passively-cooled treatment. For these new SKUs (RX7900XTX PS 24G and RX7900XT PS 20G), ASRock stripped away the typical fan-filled cooling shroud found on its other variants, like the Radeon RX 7900 XTX Taichi and Phantom Gaming models, and replaced it with a big, finned aluminum heatsink.
Curiously enough, neither product page goes into great detail about the passive cooling solution. That's unusual, as product pages for ASRock's other graphics cards that use traditional fan-based shrouds really hammer home the cooling solution. The company's Taichi model, for example, highlights a center fan that spins in reverse to reduce turbulence, as well as the use of stripes on the fan blades to increase airflow and an "air deflecting fin" design on the heatsink, among other things.
The only shout-out to the passive cooler on ASRock's latest Radeon cards is in the press release, which points out that both models feature a "vapor chamber heatink" and "efficiency aluminum cooling fins with v-shaped cutting." That's the extent of it.
Both cards also feature a metal backplate and a single 12V-2x6 power connector. As for the clock speeds, ASRock is sticking with reference specs, with the Radeon RX 7900 XTX Passive featuring a 2,270MHz game clock and up to a 2,500MHz boost clock, and the Radeon RX 7900 XT Passive running a 2,025MHz game clock and up to a 2,395MHz boost clock.
ASRock's press release doesn't mention pricing or availability. As a couple of points of reference, you can find ASRock's Radeon RX 7900 XTX Phantom Gaming for $908.99 on Amazon, and the Radeon RX 7900 XT Phantom Gaming for $689.99 at Amazon.
